“Are we just going to sit in the truck forever?”
He looked at Rue, his eyes shining bright. He wondered if she was afraid she was going to lose her nerve if they didn’t go in.
“Listen,” he said. “No one is going to say anything to you about your wedding and if they do and it bothers you, let me know and I’ll punch them in the face.”
“No,” she said. “You can’t keep punching people in the face for me.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is true.”
“I’m just saying, you look beautiful.” There. He had said it, and it had come out exactly like it ought to. Like a compliment. Free and easy. Exactly like it should have. “You’re gonna go in there and you’re going to have a good time. However that looks to you. Drink, dance. I’ll be there.”
He felt squarely back in the position he should be right then. Her protector. Her guide. That was what he was supposed to be.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve never been drunk before.”
“You don’t have to get drunk. It’s not some magicportal to having a great night. I mean, some people think it is. And I’m not going to say that I haven’t used it as one myself a time or two. But you can have fun in other ways.”
“You’re beginning to sound like an after-school special.”
“Wow.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
When they walked in, the place was wall-to-wall bodies. Men and women dressed so that they could find a partner to help them stay warm a long winter night. Rue’s dress didn’t even look scandalous in context. It was funny that it had shaken him so deeply. Just because it was Rue. There were women in dresses that were even shorter, even lower cut, and they didn’t stir the faintest bit of interest in him.
He hadn’t hooked up for a couple of weeks. He had been entirely consumed by the lead-up to Rue’s wedding, and then by the aftermath of the lack of wedding. He just hadn’t even cared to do it. That was odd. Because he had been using it as an escape ever since that first time. But he couldn’t want that tonight anyway. He was keeping tabs on Rue.
And what if she leaves with some other guy?
Well. That wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t ready to do that. She was definitely wanting to spread her wings a little bit in all of that, and it was fair. But she took this kind of thing really seriously, and it would be a mistake for her to hook up with somebody on the rebound.
As if that wasn’t human nature.
“I’ll order us some drinks,” he said.
Rue looked nervous, and it was her mannerisms that made her look out of place, not anything else. She was picking at her nails, her shoulders hunched slightly. She didn’t look afraid; she looked excited, but tentative at the same time. This was definitely not her scene. She had been to Smokey’s before, of course, but usually with Asher, dressed in something entirely different. She probably felt like she was on display, and she was. He had caught a couple of men noticing her the minute that they walked in.
He was going to keep an eye on those guys.
“Can I get two beers? And... how about a couple shots of Jack?”
He wouldn’t have any of that. He would have his beer and that would be it. That way he would be good to drive Rue home. But if she wanted to do this, if she wanted to get wild, fine. He would babysit.
He brought the drinks back to the table and she eyed the shot suspiciously.
“No pressure,” he said.
“It feels like peer pressure,” she said. “My mom and dad warned me about that.”
“Did they?”
She laughed. “No. Of course not. They never warned me about anything.”
He laughed, even though it was dark. Because it was the kind of dark that they shared.
Dark like getting trapped in a cave. Dark like finding out years later, after years of night terrors and phobias, that you got left there for as long as you did because...
